In The Shadows
by Shakuhachi Jade
Summary: Ryuk is playing a guessing game with Light. If he guesses right, Light’s gonna tell him something important… AU, drabble-ish-kinda… LxLight yaoi... vampires...?


Title – In the Shadows  
Author – _Shakuhachi Jade_

_**Summary:**__ Ryuk is playing a guessing game with Light. If he guesses right, Light's gonna tell him something important… AU, drabble-ish… LxLight yaoi_

_**Disclaimer: **__I do not own the rights to Death Note or the song "In the Shadows." This is merely a fan's work of fiction._

"_Woah, in the shadows of our life  
We can fall into the night unscarred  
Woah, in the shadows of our life  
We can never let it go this far"_

**- Story of the Year -**

"Not even the dark can take my L away from me," Light murmured, almost to himself. Ryuk hovered behind him, watching as he always was when Light was ridding the world of evil. While the teen scribbled mercilessly onto the pages of his DeathNote, Ryuk couldn't help but continue the game he'd been playing with Light for the past few hours. After all, what else was there to do around here, now that there was no one to challenge the self-acclaimed "god"?

"What about a girl, Light?" he asked, voice raspy and broken.

"No, a girl cannot take my L away from me…"

"How about guns?"

"…no gun can take my L away from me…"

"What about demons?"

Light paused in his writing long enough to say, "…That's preposterous, Ryuk," before continuing his work.

"But Light…Heheh, what about _death_?"

Light waved off the comment with his free left hand, simultaneously still writing with his right. "Same difference; Demons, Darkness, Death—_nothing_ can take my L away from me. I thought I told you this already..?"

The Shinigami shrugged and barked a laugh that sounded more like a cough. "I just think it's silly, that's all."

The room grew silent for a few moments. Light stopped writing and turned to face Ryuk with one arm resting on the back of his chair. His expression was neutral, but curiosity danced behind his eyelashes. "Silly? Explain to me what's so 'silly' about my argument."

Ryuk was obliged to tell him: "The fact that you think L is yours to own even after ya killed him!" The Shinigami suddenly started wheezing with laughter. "L's dead, Light; he doesn't belong to _nobody_—not you, not me, not even the earth you humans dumped him into. I don't know where he is now, but I do know that he isn't here with you, no matter what you say."

It was Light's turn to laugh a bit. "Oh? Is that the best you could come up with? The traditional 'He's dead and gone', hmmm?" For once, Ryuk looked a little shocked and puzzled. Light's grin was sadistic, though his voice was docile. "Go on. Keep playing. Maybe you can even figure out that there is only one thing that can take my L away from me."

"Oh, so now there _is_ something that can take him? Sheesh, Light, this was a stupid game to begin with. I only started askin' you what could take L away because I was _bored_. Well, and because you kept sayin' his name over and over and over and over in that sad, longing tone like the detective was still sitting right here in the—"

"Uhm, yeah." Light frowned at Ryuk. Insensitive bastard… "Okay," he said, "Just keep guessing; you haven't figured it out yet."

Ryuk sighed melodramatically. "I didn't know there was a real point to this discussion."

"Yes. There is." Light had gone back to writing in his DeathNote. "There _is_ a point, and I plan to make it clear as day to you, Ryuk, if I have to keep you guessing all night long. Just keep asking."

"Fine. Can _worms_ take your L away from you?"

"Let's not be sarcastic. I was serious."

"Pha! You were bein' about as serious as a clown, Light. Maybe if you fetched me an apple I'd guess better. I think you humans call it 'brain food' or something like that."

Brain food…Potato chips are brain food, right? Light briefly recalled using a bag of chips as a device for one of his ingenious plots a long time ago… That was back when L would have been watching Light on surveillance cameras strewn throughout his household.

And a conversation came to Light's mind, a conversation from a time far past potato chips and secret cameras…

_L was leaning over Light on top of the bed they sometimes shared at HQ, with his knees bent around Light's sides and his palms gripping the younger teen's shoulders. His dark, mesmerizing eyes were half lidded and scrutinizing Light with a lazy intensity that made Light long for him in the way he longed for justice. He _needed_ L; he longed for L's touch, L's smile, L's kiss, L's habits, L's accusations, L's presence, L's lust, L's breath hot against his neck…_

"_I love it when you look at me like that…" he said softly, but not quite whispering. Light's eyes were trained on L's._

"_What ever do you mean, Raito-kun?" the raven-haired detective asked._

_Light reached up and touched L's neck with his fingertips. "Like…Like _that_. I know you must be calculating in that crazy head of yours whatever percentage of Kira I am right now, but…there's something else I can see, in the way you're looking at me in this moment. Almost… Maybe…"_

_L tilted his head to one side, the action resembling that of a curious bird. He stared at Light. Then, very precisely and almost mechanically, L leaned down and locked his lips with Light's. The amber-haired teen closed his eyes and let out a subdued moan that reverberated against the kiss. L left his eyes open and stared quizzically at Light while he kissed the younger boy._

_And then L pulled away. He burst into an enormous grin that split his face in two. _

"_I do like looking at you, Light-kun."_

_The grin Light gave L was a bit more sultry than L's innocent one, "Yeah, I bet you got off _so hard_ watching me all that time on the surveillance cameras."_

_L blushed. It was the first time Light had ever seen some color in L. His cheeks flushed a beatific shade of soft pink, and he shook his head quickly from side to side._

"_I believe Light-kun is badly mistaken; I am a detective. I was only trying to find evidence of your being Kira by watching you on those tapes."_

"_Sure you were," Light mocked, unperturbed by L's denial._

"_I think it is time for a snack, don't you?" L said, hopping off of Light and shuffling out of the room, mumbling something about a slice of strawberry cheesecake. Light groaned in a very un-sexual way, but he followed L back down to the case study room nonetheless…_

L would have considered the cheesecake brain food. (Light only considered something _that_ sweet a toothache.) L was a toothache that Light wished he could hold onto again, though. The memory felt like so very, _very_ long ago… Hopefully he wouldn't have to wait much longer.

Light missed his L something terrible.

"Light? Yooohoo! You listening to me? I said forget about the apple. I've got another guess for ya."

Light cleared his thoughts and nodded to Ryuk. "Sure. What is the only thing that can take L away from me?"

Ryuk did the Shinigami equivalent of rolling his eyes: he sighed and hovered a few feet above the floor and hung his arms and legs limply from his body. "Honestly, Light, _why_ do you keep talking as though the guy is still here?"

"Because he _is_, Ryuk. He's _mine_."

"But he's _dead_!!!"

"Just give me the damn guess already. If you get it right, I'll tell you why L has not been taken away from me."

"Alright, fine. Can…" Ryuk paused. Light raised an eyebrow.

"Go on."

And then the Shinigami spread his lips into a vampyric grin. "Can _you_ take L away from you, Light?"

The other brow came up as Light started to applaud, albeit somewhat sardonically. "I'm impressed. You guessed correctly. I am the _only_ thing in this world or any other that can take my L away from me. Good job, Ryuk. If I had an apple I'd give it to you."

Ryuk's grin turned into hysterical laughter. "Didn't you already take him away though?"

Light smiled and said, "No. You'd be surprised at all the things your little notebook can and can't do, Ryuk."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"As I've told you before, I know how to manipulate its functions to fit to _my_ grand scheme; I don't need to fully explain the theatrics. How do you know L is even really dead?"

"We watched 'em bury him, Light; we went to his grave at the funeral and—"

Light quickly interrupted Ryuk by repeating his previous question slower and more articulate: "_How do you _know_ that L is _really_ dead?_"

Ryuk stopped talking and thought about Light's question for just a moment. After a few seconds of silence, his massive black wings rustled a bit and he voiced his thoughts: "Because _you_ forced Rem to write his name down in the DeathNote. He had a heart attack forty seconds later, and he _died_. That's how I know."

Light smiled sort of maniacally. "And who got their hands on said DeathNote approximately five minutes after that happened?"

Ryuk snorted. "Uh, you did…"

"Exactly."

"So?"

"So how do you know L is _really_ dead?"

"His name was written in a DeathNote!"

"Yes, a DeathNote that I claimed _immediately afterwards_."

"Light, you're not making any sense."

"You're not sensing any make!"

The Shinigami suddenly shot up into the air and whizzed around the room several times howling with raspy laughter, saying, "Light, that was the dumbest thing I've heard you say since I've known you! Ahhhhahahaha! Sense my make! Hahaha!"

"Laugh all you want, Shinigami. Did you know it's possible to _die_ laughing…?"

"That's just an expression, though."

Light giggled. "Sure it is. Like I said, have at it. _I_ know what I'm doing, whether you do or not."

Ryuk settled down after that snide comment. Light had surprised him with the DeathNote before, so there's no reason he shouldn't have another shiny apple or two hidden up his sleeve. But how could L really not be dead…? How could he…?

"_But how could L really not be dead…?_" Light said casually."_How could he…?_ Heh…How can I read your thoughts, Ryuk…?"

…!

The Shinigami spun around to face Light with wide, bugged eyes. "What the hell…?!"

Only now did he notice why Light's grin had been so subtle before, why he'd been careful not to smile too broadly.

Light smiled broadly now, though. "L's not dead, Ryuk. Not technically. Not _really_."

Ryuk finally noticed the fangs poised pointedly on Light's two rows of perfect white teeth.

"W-what…the…"

"You seem rather speechless? Maybe _L_ can explain it to you when he arrives soon."

Ryuk wanted to claw the smirk right off of Light's fucking fanged face. But instead, he grinned in his usual Shinigami-like manner and shrugged this off as just another one of Light's infinite ways of making things interesting and fun. He'd already determined that this new mind-reading power was not only supernatural (Light did just read _his_ thoughts, after all), but that it possibly put the two of them in the same ball park. What else had Light acquired from…

From what? The DeathNote? It had to be…

"You catch on fast, for a joker who just likes a good laugh," Light said, spinning around and around in his desk chair.

"Stop that!" Ryuk barked.

Light giggled. "No."

Ryuk growled, low and rumbling. It was the first time Light had ever heard him do that. "So, what _are_ you now then…?" the god of death asked with a frown adorning his shark-like mouth. "A _vampire_?"

Light stomped his feet onto the floor and stopped spinning directly in front of Ryuk. His amber hair swiveled from the sudden halt, and his hands were now clasped together resting underneath his chin. He looked positively pleased with himself.

And all he said was: "Well…yeah. Something like that."

**A/N:** Yeah, so that's what looking up LxLight fanart at 3:00 in the morning can produce… At best, I hope you think I should continue this into multi-chapter fic. And at the least, I hope this drabble entertained you. I had fun writing it. (Some of my favorite scenes from the show were of Light and Ryuk conversing. ^^;; lol) Review please. I love reviews. They make my soul happy.

Ja ne,

~;~Shaku


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